Remarkable the sheer level of incompetence around this whole project
Excellent. Crewe is a proper hub station and taking HS2 there opens it up to whole heaps of travellers who change at Crewe for London services anyway. Whilst many passengers from Manchester & Liverpool will likely stay on WCML services for the time being, it means travellers from places like south Cheshire, North Wales etc etc will use HS2 services – which wouldn’t be practical if it went only to Birmingham.
Now what I would like to see is the immediate reinstatement of the safeguarding of the rest of the route to Manchester.
Was going to post the article, but you did it 15 minutes before me.
Still good news though, and hopefully allows for the full spec HS2 to be extended further north. Happy that my speculation will come true.
One of the breakdowns I seen about HS2 was they were trying to do everything all at once rather than trying to build parts of the line in stages and upgrades. We had built a relatively successful HS1 that was not mind-blowingly expensive through Kent and Essex. But the follow up was like trying to design and build the 747 and the airports for it and then do it with planning laws that meant air shafts were being redesigned to look like rustic barns.
HS3 can be built in steps with strong legislative support from parliament to give it priority place when planning is considered. As each step is moving forward and you can review what has gone wrong, you can add learnings into the next step.
I really hope they safeguard the other routes for the future. Travelling on the TGV in France was amazing and I think it could do wonders for this country.
Miliband and Haigh are by far the best cabinet ministers. I am glad if HS2 Ltd are being stripped of running this. Cost overruns are to be expected but the scale of excess on phase 1 seems worthy of a serious investigation in my opinion.
Stopping at crewe when Liverpool and Manchester are just a little further north? I assume the trains will run on slower track past then? Because crewe?
Hopefully, by the time train testing starts on HS2 Phase 1, the government can find some money down the back of the proverbial sofa to resurrect HS3/NPR/IRP/whatever it’s called this week (Liverpool to Leeds and potentially beyond, via Manchester and possibly Bradford).
Well, there isn’t really a choice.
Old Oak Common does not have enough platforms to be a terminus station. You’d have to demolish it and start again.
And Birmingham to Crewe lacks capacity for more trains so HS2 trains would displace existing, higher capacity services.
Now we just need ministers to understand that the same constraints also apply to Leeds and Manchester, so they need to build it properly.
And really grasp the fact that HS2 to Manchester with the Golborne link frees up lots of capacity both on West Coast to Manchester, but also along the entire length of the East Coast Line. Huge connectivity gains for everywhere between Doncaster and Newcastle.
They need to go all in on these infrastructure projects. Would love to see power looked at next and nationlisation of all natural monopolies. At least they can say look we are taxing you more but we have xyz paying back over the long term and are trying things.
At the end of the day the UK is in decline without major intervention. The idea that once we clear the national debt with austerity it will be sunshine and lollipops is utter fantasy. The sooner we stop treating the national budget like a household budget the better.
China can build tens of thousands of miles of these high speed railway tracks and we’re struggling with HS2.
How the fuck did our country get so bad?
We need to decouple our infrastructure legislation, investment and management from the party politics roundabout. I’ve never felt more certain about anything. None of them are equipped to do it properly and they just end up wasting *our* money.
12 comments
Remarkable the sheer level of incompetence around this whole project
Excellent. Crewe is a proper hub station and taking HS2 there opens it up to whole heaps of travellers who change at Crewe for London services anyway. Whilst many passengers from Manchester & Liverpool will likely stay on WCML services for the time being, it means travellers from places like south Cheshire, North Wales etc etc will use HS2 services – which wouldn’t be practical if it went only to Birmingham.
Now what I would like to see is the immediate reinstatement of the safeguarding of the rest of the route to Manchester.
Was going to post the article, but you did it 15 minutes before me.
Still good news though, and hopefully allows for the full spec HS2 to be extended further north. Happy that my speculation will come true.
One of the breakdowns I seen about HS2 was they were trying to do everything all at once rather than trying to build parts of the line in stages and upgrades. We had built a relatively successful HS1 that was not mind-blowingly expensive through Kent and Essex. But the follow up was like trying to design and build the 747 and the airports for it and then do it with planning laws that meant air shafts were being redesigned to look like rustic barns.
HS3 can be built in steps with strong legislative support from parliament to give it priority place when planning is considered. As each step is moving forward and you can review what has gone wrong, you can add learnings into the next step.
I really hope they safeguard the other routes for the future. Travelling on the TGV in France was amazing and I think it could do wonders for this country.
Miliband and Haigh are by far the best cabinet ministers. I am glad if HS2 Ltd are being stripped of running this. Cost overruns are to be expected but the scale of excess on phase 1 seems worthy of a serious investigation in my opinion.
Stopping at crewe when Liverpool and Manchester are just a little further north? I assume the trains will run on slower track past then? Because crewe?
Hopefully, by the time train testing starts on HS2 Phase 1, the government can find some money down the back of the proverbial sofa to resurrect HS3/NPR/IRP/whatever it’s called this week (Liverpool to Leeds and potentially beyond, via Manchester and possibly Bradford).
Well, there isn’t really a choice.
Old Oak Common does not have enough platforms to be a terminus station. You’d have to demolish it and start again.
And Birmingham to Crewe lacks capacity for more trains so HS2 trains would displace existing, higher capacity services.
Now we just need ministers to understand that the same constraints also apply to Leeds and Manchester, so they need to build it properly.
And really grasp the fact that HS2 to Manchester with the Golborne link frees up lots of capacity both on West Coast to Manchester, but also along the entire length of the East Coast Line. Huge connectivity gains for everywhere between Doncaster and Newcastle.
They need to go all in on these infrastructure projects. Would love to see power looked at next and nationlisation of all natural monopolies. At least they can say look we are taxing you more but we have xyz paying back over the long term and are trying things.
At the end of the day the UK is in decline without major intervention. The idea that once we clear the national debt with austerity it will be sunshine and lollipops is utter fantasy. The sooner we stop treating the national budget like a household budget the better.
China can build tens of thousands of miles of these high speed railway tracks and we’re struggling with HS2.
How the fuck did our country get so bad?
We need to decouple our infrastructure legislation, investment and management from the party politics roundabout. I’ve never felt more certain about anything. None of them are equipped to do it properly and they just end up wasting *our* money.